


The Best Reality

by Buffintruder



Category: Galavant (TV)
Genre: Accidental Kissing, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Camping, Huddling For Warmth, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22353883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffintruder/pseuds/Buffintruder
Summary: Sid realized too late that agreeing to third wheel Isabella and Galavant’s camping trip was a huge mistake.
Relationships: Galavant/Isabella/Sidney (Galavant)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	The Best Reality

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written a getting-together story that focuses on the romantic aspect of it, so I hope it's okay

“I’m not in love with a straight white guy,” Sid told himself. That would be a ridiculously dumb thing to do, and Sid considered himself to be a smart and reasonable person. At least, he was compared to pretty much everyone else around him, with the exception of Roberta.

Never mind that part of him melted everytime Galavant smiled at him; being in love with him was too bad of an idea for Sid to go along with it. Galavant was completely happy with his clever and fierce and amazing girlfriend who Sid was also sort of maybe a little bit in love with, and Sid didn’t want to pine over both sides of this perfect couple. So he definitely was not in love with Isabella either.

This was the kind of dramatic situation that seemed more appropriate for romcoms and soap operas than real life, but Sid had seen enough of those to know he didn’t have a great chance with Galavant or Isabella or even both of them at once. Black Jewish bisexual guys didn’t get happy love stories (or, let’s be real, any stories at all). But even if they did, those stories wouldn’t have him coming in between a love as true as Isabella and Galavant’s, except maybe as a villain, getting in the way of the end pairing. And that was that the last thing Sid wanted.

Pretty much the only good option in this situation was the one Sid was living right now, where he got to spend lots of time with his two best friends that he worked with and totally did not want to date.

Which was why he wasn’t in love with them, because that would just make things messy and painful. He was already in the best possible reality, so there was no point in dwelling on impossible dreams.

“I’m not,” Sid insisted to himself, to solidify the thought in his mind, to try to make it real.

“You’re not what?” Isabella asked, causing Sid to drop a tent pole in surprise. He was supposed to be setting up the tent, but he was pretty sure he had spent the last five minutes just standing there, staring off into the distance as he thought about his less than platonic feelings for his friends.

“I, uh—what? Nothing!” Sid stammered.

Isabella rolled her eyes at him. She dropped the stack of wood she was carrying in front of the fire pit and walked towards him. “Need help?”

“Yes, please,” Sid said in relief. The tent was meant to be big enough to comfortably fit all three of them, and he had been struggling to wrangle it into position on his own.

“Is Galavant still out getting food from the car?” Isabella asked.

“Yep,” Sid said. “I don’t know why he thought it would be a good idea to pick a campsite a kilometer away from where we parked, but yeah. He’s taking awhile.”

“I don’t mind the distance, but next time, I’d like some paths where we can walk without having our legs savagely attacked by brambles every step of the way,” Isabella said. “Gal has some pretty inconvenient ideas sometimes.” Despite her complaints, she wore a goofy fond smile that Sid kind of wanted aimed at him someday.

“I’m not even sure why I let myself be dragged out on this camping trip,” Sid said, trying to ignore the fact that he did in fact totally know why.

“To laugh at Gal when he starts complaining about how awful this idea was, even though it was his idea in the first place?” Isabella suggested with a small smirk, and that was definitely one of the factors. She reached out for the other end of the tent pole Sid was holding as he desperately tried to keep the rest of the structure from collapsing.

“Something like that,” Sid said, grinning back.

...

In the peace that settled after the chaotic affair that was dinner, Sid offered to gather more firewood to leave the new couple some time to themselves. Since he was going to spend this whole weekend with only them for company, having some space to himself would be good, and he was sure that they weren’t going to complain.

He took his time in the slowly darkening forest, wandering from tree to tree, looking for any dry sticks he could find. When Sid had no more room in his arms to carry anything else, he returned to find Galavant and Isabella cuddling by the fire. It would have been very cute if Galavant wasn’t complaining about the smell of smoke getting in his clothes, but it also wouldn’t be Galavant and Isabella if they were quiet, so that almost made it better.

Isabella caught Sid’s eye as he set down his wood, raising an eyebrow as if to ask ‘what did I say?’ Sid grinned and shrugged, and Isabella smiled back.

“What?” Galavant demanded, interrupting his own rant. “That’s a very devious smile you’re sharing. Should I be worried? What are you plotting?”

“Nothing,” Sid said immediately.

“You’re just predictable, is all,” Isabella added.

Galavant grumbled something under his breath, but he wasn’t trying very hard to seem upset, even without the hand gently rubbing up and down Isabella’s shoulder.

“Get over here, Sid,” Isabella said, waving him over.

He complied, sitting down on her other side, close enough that Galavant’s hand occasionally brushed against his sleeve. “What were you talking about before you started arguing over smoke?”

“Izzy and I were debating over how much cheese you can put on a grilled cheese sandwich before it’s too much,” Galavant said, looking expectantly over Isabella at Sid. “Back me up Sid, there’s no such thing as too much, right?”

“But there is!” Isabella protested. “You can’t have more cheese than bread, for starters.”

It was utterly ridiculous, but as Sid let himself get dragged into the argument, he thought that if he spent the rest of his life in the warmth of this moment, he would die a happy man.

...

Camping, Sid decided halfway through the night, was far better in theory than in practice, and sleeping was by far the worst part of it.

At first his sleeping bag had been too hot, with the summer sun gone only a couple hours. Unfortunately, unlike in his bed at home, he currently had only one layer. Either it was on, and he was sweating, or it was off, and he felt too cold and exposed. 

He also felt gross and grimy, having been outside for so long with the dirt and plants and no showers or baths of any sort. It took him several hours of tossing and turning in his too small, too stuffy sleeping bag on the hard uneven ground for him to fall asleep.

Then when he finally did, he woke up only a few hours later to the aching cold. Sid tried to curl himself up into as small of a ball as he could, but it was an uncomfortable position to hold, and he still wasn’t warm enough.

In the shadowy moonlight, Sid could see that Galavant and Isabella had combined their sleeping bags into one big one sometime during the night, and they were now so tangled up together that Sid couldn’t tell where one person ended and the other began. 

Even if Sid didn’t know them, he would have wanted to climb in next to them, just for the sake of body heat. With his complicated feelings towards both of them, Sid had to turn the other way and pretend they weren’t there to keep his warm heart and cold body from ganging up on his mind to convince him to crawl into the large sleeping bag with them.

By the time the gray dawn light was beginning to seep into the tent, Sid had dozed on and off a few times, but he wasn’t sure he had actually fallen back asleep. When it became bright enough to see colors clearly, Sid gave up on trying to sleep altogether. On a regular day, he would likely still be asleep, but he was colder now than he had ever been in his life, so he forced himself out of the sleeping bag and ran to the fire pit to get the fire going again.

Sid was starting to feel something approaching warm when Galavant and Isabella stumbled out into the dewy clearing, still clinging onto each other.

“Morning,” Galavant greeted, already pretty alert despite the earliness of the hour.

Isabella mumbled something into Galavant’s shoulder.

“Hi,” Sid said. “I was going to get some pancakes and coffee going before you got up, but it was too cold, and I thought you would sleep longer.”

“Well,” Galavant said, raising an eyebrow. “If you want to make those now, I certainly won’t stop you, and I think Izzy might marry you.”

“I probably would,” Isabella muttered. “Some boyfriend you are, Gal.”

Sid knew it was just a joke that didn’t mean anything at all, but there was still a part of him that wanted to immediately start the water boiling with an urgency he hadn’t felt in a while.

Galavant rolled his eyes and helped them both sit down in front of the fire.

Sighing internally at himself, Sid stood up and went to their tent in search of coffee making materials. He was too sleep-deprived to bother pretending to himself that he wouldn’t do everything he could to make Isabella even a little bit happier.

Breakfast ran mostly smoothly, except for the part where Galavant and Isabella seemed to start a competition called “Who Can Fluster Sid the Most?” where they took turns increasing the ridiculousness of their compliments on his pancakes. They were teasing, but Sid was pretty sure that they weren’t entirely lying, and that made having left the warmth of the fire worth it.

But it was finished soon enough, and after everything was cleaned up, Sid decided to go for a walk. He enjoyed having time to himself and not dealing with everything Galavant and Isabella got up to. They were still a relatively new couple, having gotten together a few weeks ago. They weren’t too big on PDA (to Sid’s eternal relief), but he figured it would be best to try and reduce the chances of seeing anything.

The woods were beautiful at this time of the year, all green and gray and golden, a great backdrop to contemplate deep thoughts in, but eventually Sid got bored and tired. He turned around back the way he came, hoping that he could find his way back to the camp. He was pretty sure he had gone in a straight line, so he wasn’t too worried about being lost, but the nagging knowledge that he wouldn’t  _ know _ whether he was lost or not until it was too late tugged at the corners of his mind.

Sid had reached the fifth time where he thought that he  _ must _ have made it back by now, and panic was starting to creep around the edges of his thoughts, when he heard a rustling sound and a twig snapping. He froze, filled with the sudden terror that maybe he had stumbled into the path of a bear or some other kind of wild animal.

How were people supposed to react to bears? Were they supposed to run in zig-zags? Climb up a tree? Freeze? Was making eye contact a sign of aggression, or was lowering your gaze was a sign of submission? He couldn’t quite remember.

The sound of foliage crunching grew closer as Sid’s heart beat faster. He had to make a decision, some form of action.

“Sid?” Galavant called out, poking his head out from behind the bushes where the rustling was coming from.

“Over here!” he called out, letting out a shaky breath of relief. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” Galavant said, stepping out next to Sid. “We were worried you’d gotten lost or something.”

“So was I,” Sid tried to joke. “But I guess I made it mostly back fine.”

“Well, we were going to make lunch soon,” Galavant said, starting off in the direction he had come from.

“Nice timing for me to head back then,” Sid said as he followed behind Galavant.

“It’s just sandwiches, but yeah.”

They spent the next few minutes filling up silence by trying to decide what would make the perfect sandwich. It wasn’t exactly stimulating conversation, but Sid enjoyed it nonetheless. Caught up in thoughts of different types of condiments, Sid tripped over a root and was falling before he even realized it.

Galavant’s arm came around him to try and block his fall, but his momentum was too strong, and Sid came crashing to the ground on top of Galavant. He stood up quickly, his heart racing from the surprise of it all.

As he reached a hand out to help Galavant up, he noticed the plants underneath where he had landed. “Oh shit! That’s poison ivy!”

Ignoring Sid’s hand, Galavant stood up. “Yeah, I noticed. Why do you think I got myself under you before you fell?”

“Oh.” Sid hadn’t realized it was a conscious decision. His mind immediately shot back to the thought of Galavant underneath him. He wasn’t quite sure whether he wanted to come back to that thought later or immediately banish it from his mind. “I, um, thank you.”

Galavant grinned. “You know me. Savior of the distressed and all that.”

“Right,” Sid drawled, trying to mentally shove away all the warm fluttery feelings inside his chest, to will away the warmth in his cheeks.

“Though I do believe this was not well thought out,” Galavant admitted with a little wince. “My neck is really starting to burn.”

Now probably was not the best time to tell Galavant that Sid was one of those people who weren’t affected by poison ivy, he decided, feeling rather guilty. “Are you okay? We should hurry back to camp and get that looked at.”

“I’m fine,” Galavant said, scowling as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Okay...” Sid said. He didn’t entirely believe Galavant, but there was nothing he could do, and it wasn’t like poison ivy had long-lasting effects.

They reached the campsite without further incident, where Isabella greeted them with lunch.

“I thought I would take the easier meal, and leave Gal with the task of making dinner,” Isabella explained when they tried to thank her.

“That does not make me appreciate this any less,” Sid said, grinning. Since he had made breakfast, it wasn’t like it affected him either way.

“Well, I disagree,” Galavant grumbled, but he made ‘mmm’ noises as he took his next bite, so Sid didn’t exactly believe him. He rubbed the back of his neck unconsciously

“Are you okay?” Isabella asked him. “You look pained.”

“I’m fine,” Galavant quickly reassured her.

Isabella quirked an eyebrow. “Is he really, Sid?”

“He fell into some poison ivy,” Sid admitted.

“Yeah, saving your ass,” Galavant interjected.

She rolled her eyes. “The two of you just can’t stay out of trouble, can you? You were barely gone, and this happens.”

Galavant took her hand. “You know, you could just stay with us all the time and make sure we never do anything dumb.”

Sid looked away, trying to cover up his awkwardness with a snort. Isabella had gotten herself into her fair share of trouble, so he was pretty sure that wouldn’t work as planned. As a trio, they had probably gotten up to far more shenanigans than any two of them combined.

“Yeah, I don’t think it works like that,” Isabella said, but she kept her hand in Galavant’s.

...

It turned out that despite the restless nights and collapsing tents and arguments over how to cook things over the fire, camping was actually quite boring if you didn’t have any activities planned.

After lunch, the afternoon faded into sleepy silence. Sid spent a long time poking at the coals in the fire pit, throwing in random plant material and watching what happened. At some point, Galavant went back to the tent to nap, but Sid wasn’t paying that much attention.

“We really should have gone camping by a lake or something,” Isabella said out of the blue. “Then at least we could go swimming or something. Skip stones. Build sand castles.  _ Something _ .”

Sid looked up from the fire. “We could build mud castles? I saw a stream like half an hour away that way.” He pointed in the direction he had gone hiking that morning.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t feel like walking.”

There was a long pause.

“So why did you agree to this camping trip in the first place?” Sid asked. “You could have just done a road trip or something for your honeymoon. Gone to Scotland or France or something.”

“I don’t think it counts as a honeymoon if you’ve only started dating,” Isabella said dryly.

“Well, yeah,” Sid said, because that wasn’t the point of the question. “And normally, you don’t invite your friend to third wheel. But you didn’t answer my question.”

Isabella shrugged. “Just seemed like a good chance to hang out with the two of you. Ever since we started working with Gareth and Madalena and everyone, the three of us haven’t spent as much time together.”

“I’ve missed it too,” Sid admitted. He still saw the other two on a regular basis, but it was usually short meetings in between more important things with other people. They tried to grab lunch together every Thursday, but other than that, the times where he actually got to have a conversation with both of them together were fairly infrequent. “Enough to make this whole camping thing all worth it, probably.”

“Yeah...” Isabella sighed. “But we’ve got to think of a better way to hang out for next time.”

“Not a fan of sleeping on the ground in the cold?” Sid teased. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as cold in my entire life as I was this morning.” It was an exaggeration, but not by much.

“Just join the cuddle pile next time!” Isabella said. “The more people there, the more blankets and body heat we all get!”

“Yeah, okay,” Sid said, even as he vowed to himself that he wouldn’t ever say anything. Even with her explicit permission, he could think of few things that would be more awkward.

...

Sid later realized that he probably shouldn’t have said anything at all in the first place because when Isabella made an offer, she didn’t back down.

Once again, he found himself awake in the middle of the night. The cold seemed to go down so deep that it was ingrained into his soul, and he couldn’t stop shivering. He tried curling himself up again, but he was still freezing, and his legs were uncomfortably squished in the cramped confines of the bag. Every brush of fabric that wasn’t already warmed by his meager body heat sent shivers up and down his body, but he was so cold that it didn’t make much difference.

Time no longer seemed to exist. Sid couldn’t remember how long he had been awake or how long he had been asleep before that. The only things that existed in the world was the darkness of the tent and the cold in every single cell of his body.

“Are you awake?” Galavant whispered. Sid opened his mouth to answer, but Isabella spoke before he could.

“Yes. Should we...?”

“Absolutely,” Galavant said.

Sid heard sleeping bags unzip and Isabella’s whisper, “Fuck me, it’s cold out here.” There was a bit more rustling of people moving about, and then after a long moment, there was silence. Sid opened his eyes and saw one large lump next to him, rather than the two smaller lumps there had been before.

Sid sighed to himself and turned his back on the warmth and companionship that seemed to be taunting him. This was the true temptation, he decided. Rooms of gold and naked women and more food than could be eaten in a lifetime were all well and good for old dead guys. Getting a break from the cold and cuddling the two people he loved was all Sid wanted. Throw in everlasting free wifi, and he would happily sell his soul to the devil.

“Sid?” Isabella whispered.

“Yeah?” he replied, hoping that she would offer him a place again because he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist now, hoping that she  _ wouldn’t _ extend that offer for the same reason.

“Get in here. Your chattering teeth’ll keep me up all night otherwise,” Galavant muttered.

And if  _ both _ of them wanted Sid there, there was no way he could say no. Even if it meant getting out of his sleeping bag into the biting air outside.

He took a breath like he was about to plunge into icy waters, and pushed his sleeping bag down. Sid couldn’t even think anymore, he just fumbled at the zipper with stiff fingers and scooted towards Isabella and Galavant, shivering so hard that he was probably a step away from dancing.

“We should put the Sid’s bag on the bottom,” Isabella said. She wasn’t whispering anymore, but her voice was still quiet, despite all of them being awake. “More heat escapes from the ground.”

“But I don’t want to get up again,” Galavant grumbled.

Isabella shoved him, and after a bit more shuffling around, Sid found himself right in between Isabella and Galavant, sandwiched between three thick blankets. For the first time in forever, it seemed, he could grasp onto the concept of warmth. It was still cold, but with two people pressed close against him on either side, he no longer felt like dying. Emotionally, he was burning to death with emotions he couldn’t properly focus on at the moment—probably something like embarrassment, gratitude, and affection—but that was fine.

“Thanks, guys,” he said. The ground was softer too, with two layers underneath him. It was actually kind of comfortable now.

“This is the best option for everyone in this tent,” Galavant said. “So it’s really no problem.”

Sid closed his eyes and tried to relax. He wasn’t warm enough yet for his muscles to unstiffen, but at least he was too tired to properly freak out and over-analyze this whole situation.

After a bit of shifting around, everyone seemed to settle on a comfortable position, and before Sid knew it, he was asleep.

...

When Sid woke up, the first thing he felt was the heat surrounding him. He was lying on his side, and someone in the direction he was facing had wrapped an arm over him. On the other side was a line of warmth down his back.

He wasn’t coherent enough to find this abnormal. His thoughts drifted in lazy contentment, not quite detached from his dreams yet. The world was a comfortable haze, and he never wanted it to change. This was what perfection was.

Then a warm mouth found his, tender and soft, and Sid had to revise his previous thought because  _ this _ was even better. Sid leaned into the kiss like a flower drawn to sunlight. If this was how all mornings went, he would never have another complaint about waking up again.

Except this wasn’t quite right, because this  _ was _ unusual. He didn’t normally get kissed awake, and he didn’t normally sleep next to other people, and his bed was softer than this, and something wasn’t right.

Sid opened his eyes and saw Galavant’s face with closed eyes and a couple day’s worth of stubble in the gray morning light. He froze. All of a sudden, his dreamlike acceptance of this too-perfect moment vanished. This wasn’t some fantasy; it was real, and this wasn’t how Sid’s life was supposed to go.

He could see the start of a confused frown spread across Galavant’s face as Sid pulled away before Galavant opened his eyes, his eyebrows immediately jumping up in shock.

Galavant blinked. “I—shit—sorry. I—I thought you were Isabella!” he said in a voice raspy with sleep.

And it wasn’t like Sid thought the situation would be any different, but his heart still plunged. He could feel the cold morning air biting at his nose and ears, but at that moment, it seemed infinitely preferable to staying where he was for another second. 

“I know white people think all brown people look the same, but I’m really not her,” Sid said because his mouth didn’t know what it was doing anymore. His hands were busy pushing himself out from between Isabella and Galavant, not even caring about all the cold air he was letting in under the covers.

He thought he heard Isabella groan, but by then, Sid was already unzipping the tent flap as quickly as his shaking hands would let him. He didn’t even want to imagine what Isabella would think about all this.

“Wait!” Galavant said, and there was the rustling sound of him getting up. “I didn’t mean it like—”

But Sid no longer cared what Galavant meant by anything. He just wanted out. 

Fleeing from the tent, Sid bolted to the fire. Despite his desperation to escape and mentally block out everything from the last six or so hours, he would prefer to be near a heat source if at all possible. Especially since his coat was still in the tent. If Galavant tried to come out and talk to him, Sid figured he could go hide out in the woods, but otherwise, he would try to get the fire started back up again.

Keeping a wary eye on the tent, Sid poked at the coals, adding some twigs. There was no sign of anyone coming out, but it wasn’t until the fire was really going again that Sid started to relax.

He watched the ever-shifting flames as his mind went over every decision in his entire life that had brought him to where he was.

Why had he applied for the job as Galavant’s assistant? Why had he insisted that Galavant helped Isabella the first time they met her? Why had he gone along on this camping trip, despite knowing that it was the dating equivalent of a honeymoon?

And most importantly, why had he taken Isabella and Galavant’s offer to sleep with them? He could have pretended to be asleep when they asked. He could have survived the night in freezing agony. What was a night of discomfort compared to what was sure to be a lifetime of embarrassment?

Objectively, Sid knew it wasn’t his fault, or even Galavant’s for that matter, but he still couldn’t help but feel that there was  _ something  _ he should have done differently. Something that wouldn’t have led to  _ Galavant kissing Sid _ .

The memory popped into his head without invitation, and he would have had a great time reliving the experience, except he knew how the scene ended. The sheer amount of humiliation destroyed any joy he could get from remembering what had been for a short time a pleasant experience. 

If he had been more awake, would he have stopped it as soon as it started? Would that have helped? Surely it couldn’t have made things worse. At least it would have stopped the embarrassment of Sid kissing back. Galavant at least thought he was sleeping next to his true love. Sid had no such excuse, or at least none that he was willing to admit to. Even if his conscious mind hadn’t realized it was Galavant, there wasn’t anybody else he could have gotten him mixed up for.

His thoughts were interrupted by the soft unzipping of the tent flap across the clearing.

Sid’s mind halted and then started back up again to wonder if running away right at that moment would appear too cowardly, or if he could make it look like he had always been meaning to leave. Then he decided that he didn’t really care if he looked cowardly or not because pride was for people who hadn’t already lost all of it.

But as he stood up to leave, carefully not looking back at the tent, Galavant’s voice called out to stop him. “Wait! Sid, please. Don’t go. I—can we talk?”

Sid hesitated. They would have to have this conversation at some point. And if it didn’t happen, the awkwardness would drag out even longer. And no matter what happened, they would have to spend a long car ride back home together, so Sid could hardly avoid Galavant forever. Sometimes Sid really hated the logical part of his brain.

“Yeah?” he said. He kept his eyes fixed on the fire as he sat back down.

“Look,” Galavant said, sounding almost as uncomfortable with the whole situation as Sid was. “I—I’m sorry. People shouldn’t kiss people without their permission, and it was an accident, but still. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I get it. Just an accident. It happens,” Sid said, desperate to have this conversation over with before he could say something true like, ‘Well, from now on, you have my permission.’ Especially because it wasn’t actually true because Sid  _ cared _ , and he wouldn’t really be okay with it unless Isabella was also cool with that, and that was far too much to hope for.

“Right,” Galavant said.

“Let’s just forget about it and move on.” Sid still couldn’t bring himself to look in even the same general direction as Galavant. From the sound of Galavant’s voice, he was now sitting several feet away from Sid, far enough out of his line of sight that Sid could see the barest blur out of the corner of his right eye.

There was a long pause. Sid wanted to disappear and permanently end this conversation. He wondered if they had talked enough that it wouldn’t hang over their heads if he left now. Probably not, he thought regretfully.

“I—But what if—” Galavant stuttered to a halt. “Shit. I really need Isabella here for this.”

“For what?” Sid could feel his shoulders tense. It probably wasn’t fair of him to hope that Galavant wouldn’t tell Isabella, that he wouldn’t drag another person into this awkward mess and make it even weirder. They were a good couple, the kind that actually communicated. Sid shouldn’t wish for secrets between them just to save him from a bit of embarrassment.

“Yeah, for what?” Isabella asked sleepily, and Sid whirled around to see her head poking out of the tent. Her long hair was a mess. Half of it was ignoring the boundary of its usual part, strands curling up and sticking out at odd angles. “Why’d you two go? It’s too cold in here.”

“Um,” Galavant said as Isabella crawled out of the tent. “Well, you see...”

Sid yanked his eyes back to the fire and squeezed them closed. Isabella didn’t know yet, and Galavant was going to describe what had just happened right in front of Sid. He didn’t think he could handle it.

“We were both half asleep and Gal accidently kissed me, thinking I was you,” Sid said quickly before Galavant could drag this out any longer. He risked a quick peak at Isabella who merely blinked.

“Oh.” There was nothing in her voice that gave away anything more than vague sympathy for the awkwardness of the situation. “I was wondering where my usual wake-up kiss went.”

Sid looked away, accidentally catching sight of Galavant’s burning face as his eyes returned back to the fire. Was this really some kind of routine, Galavant kissing Isabella awake? He wished he had never had the thought because now his mind couldn’t focus on anything else. He wished it was him, and he didn’t even have the luck to have the clarity of knowing which one he wanted to be. Either of them. Both of them. It didn’t really matter, because it wasn’t happening.

“I just—” Galavant started, his voice cracking on the second word. He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to talk about that thing we were talking about the other day.”

“Oh,” Isabella said. “Yeah, this would be a good time for that.”

Sid couldn’t imagine what Galavant and Isabella had been discussing that involved him and was somehow relevant in this situation, but he couldn’t see how it would be good for him. Were they going to tell him that they wanted some space from him, now that they were together? Had they noticed his crush on one or both of them and wanted to gently let him down?

“Good time for what?” Sid managed to force his mouth say.

There was a pause.

“I... I know—This timing makes me seem like even more of a creep,” Galavant said. “But I, uh, it’d be even worse if I didn’t tell you, I think. I swear I really didn’t mean to kiss you.”

That didn’t seem to fit directly with any of Sid’s theories, but he had a hard time following what Galavant was saying, with his mind so full of noise that it almost drowned out everything else.

“Izzy and I were talking, and—This isn’t meant to pressure you into anything, we just wanted you to know that we like you. Um, romantically,” Galavant continued.

Sid’s brain froze.

“And we thought there was a chance you might return those feelings,” Isabella said. “But if you don’t, then it’s really no big deal, and we’d love to be your friends, if you still want that,” she added quickly.

_ You are not letting this opportunity pass by! _ a fierce portion of his brain commanded, breaking the stunned silence that filled every inch of his brain. It gave him with the strength to say, “And if I do? Return it?” He glanced up at Galavant and Isabella to see them loosen, smiling in giddy relief.

“Then, do you want to go out with us?” Isabella asked. “Maybe this evening, after we’ve all had a chance to get back home and shower and stuff?”

“Yes,” Sid said before she had finished speaking. “Yes, I—I, yes.” He grinned embarrassedly at his own awkwardness, but Galavant and Isabella were beaming at him, and Sid no longer cared about any of the discomfort he had felt in the past hour. 

“Oh, good!” Galavant said.

“Like the three of us on a date with all three of us?” Sid clarified, and that wasn’t the best wording to ask if this really was romantic thing with three equal components, like an equilateral triangle, but it seemed to be enough.

“Yes,” Isabella said, as Galavant nodded.

“Okay.” Sid wished he could grab the sun from the sky and yank it down to the other horizon, even though he knew that wasn’t how time worked. He couldn’t wait for evening to come.

“Since Gal already got a turn, can I kiss you?” Isabella asked.

She was talking to  _ him _ , Sid thought with a rush of exhilaration. “Um, yeah. Of course,” he said, trying to sound at least a little bit smooth.

Isabella grinned and took a few steps forward, sitting down next to him. She reached out and Sid leaned forward, and then they were kissing. It was a bit awkward at first, and both of their mouths tasted awful, but it was also perfect and amazing and Sid never wanted it to end.

When they finally drew apart, Sid was sure with all the brain cells still working that he looked as dazed and lovestruck as any cheesy cartoon character ever did, but neither Isabella nor Galavant were laughing at him. They were both looking at him in a way that made Sid start to think that maybe he wouldn’t need to throw himself into the fire in order to drive the lingering chill from his bones.

It seemed that maybe there was some hope for Sid’s mess of a romantic life after all.


End file.
